New CEO as Mahin­dra looks north to grow

ASHOK THAKUR, cur­rent Mahin­dra SA CEO “Back in 2004, when we started Mahin­dra SA, we al­ready knew that the coun­try would be the beach­head for Mahin­dra’s growth in Africa … Since then, we’ve en­cour­aged lo­cal skills de­vel­op­ment and have re­duced the num­ber of ex-pats in favour of SA em­ploy­ees.”

& Mahin­dra Ltd, one of In­dia’s lead­ing busi­ness houses, has con­firmed the ap­point­ment of San­joy Gupta as the new chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Mahin­dra South Africa.

Gupta’s ap­point­ment comes in the wake of the ear­lier an­nounce­ment that cur­rent Mahin­dra SA CEO, Ashok Thakur, will be head­ing up Mahin­dra’s newly es­tab­lished African Busi­ness Unit, which will act as the cen­tre of the com­pany’s busi­ness ex­pan­sion into Africa.

The highly ex­pe­ri­enced Gupta joins the Mahin­dra SA team from Mahin­dra & Mahin­dra in In­dia, where his most re­cent po­si­tion was vice pres­i­dent for na­tional spares and ser­vice strat­egy, tech­ni­cal sup­port, sales and ser­vice and cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion.

He started his pro­fes­sional ca­reer in heavy earth-mov­ing equip­ment in 1989. His more than 25 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the mo­tor in­dus­try, gained at both Ford In­dia and Mahin­dra, in­cludes na­tional dealer chan­nel de­vel­op­ment, head of na­tional sales-per­sonal ve­hi­cles and head of cus­tomer care.

Gupta joins Mahin­dra SA as the lo­cal com­pany cel­e­brates 11 years of op­er­a­tion in SA. Dur­ing that time, the com­pany has de­vel­oped into a solid busi­ness with com­pelling fu­ture prospects and a strong em­pha­sis on growth.

Its im­por­tance has gained fur­ther mo­men­tum with the re­cent an­nounce­ment of an Africa-fo­cused busi­ness ex- pan­sion strat­egy con­trolled by a ded­i­cated Africa Busi­ness Unit. This con­firms SA’s key role in Mahin­dra’s fu­ture ex­pan­sion plans on the African con­ti­nent.

“Back in 2004, when we started Mahin­dra SA, we al­ready knew that the coun­try would be the beach­head for Mahin­dra’s growth in Africa,” said Thakur.

“Since then, we’ve en­cour­aged lo­cal skills de­vel­op­ment and have re­duced the num­ber of ex-pats in favour of SA emMAHINDRA ploy­ees.”

Cus­tomer care has been another core el­e­ment of the Mahin­dra busi­ness here from the very be­gin­ning, and as our cus­tomers will con­firm, we sup­port them in ev­ery way pos­si­ble, added Thakur.

“Against the back­drop of Mahin­dra’s closer fo­cus on Africa, and the key role Mahin­dra SA is set to play in that strat­egy, the lo­cal com­pany is en­ter­ing a new and ex­cit­ing phase, with more ini­tia­tives on all fronts. We have sev­eral new model in­tro­duc­tions planned in the short to medium term, while we also an­tic­i­pate ex­pand­ing the Mahin­dra dealer net­work.

“I wish San­joy Gupta all the very best as he takes over the reins of Mahin­dra SA, and steers it to­wards a bright and promis­ing fu­ture,” said Thakur. — WR.